Great Big Fat Family Reunion
On this Friday, I load up my two small children and we drive to Louisville, Kentucky. Every few years my dad's side of the family has a family reunion, and it's time once again. We always have them on the 4th of July weekend.
Oh, before I forget...the kids! That's Alex right behind them, and me asleep on the sofa. I should dig out a better one of Ariana though. She's sticking her hands in her face on the one Amanda has, and on this one she's doing a totally fake grin. Still, here it is!
I always have mixed feelings when the family reunion comes around. I mean, sure, I'm glad to see everybody and we always have a good time, but I always brood before and afterwards too for a variety of reasons.
To start, this is the first family reunion I will be attending as a divorced woman. God that feels odd. Nearly all my other cousins and such my age and older are married with children, or at least engaged, and they will be attending with their significant others. My love is stuck in France for a few more weeks, so that is not an option.
Then there's my branch of the Mueller family versus the other branches issue. I don't know how it happened, but my particular unit doesn't fit in with the other parts of the family very well. My unit is the "intellectual snob" unit. Yes, some of my cousins have college degrees, but education wasn't smacked into them like it was with us. My dad is a retired orthodontist. He was #2 in his high school class, did two years at Notre Dame pre-dentistry and then did so well there that he went off to dental school without a bachelor's degree completed. Then he was #2 in his dental class and #1 in his orthodontist class. My dad was, in his day, one of only three board certified orthodontists in Florida. He was the one that all the others used as a reference when they had clients they couldn't help. My dad is brilliant. He would have never been happy with anything but a brilliant woman by his side. Therefore, he tracked down my mom with expert hunting skills. She was a math major and eventually got her ultrasound certifications in a variety of specialty areas. We were taught that we could ONLY quit school AFTER we had our bachelor's, and the preference was that we'd go on further. We were to find and marry other intelligent people and breed intelligent, educated babies. So sayeth the parents. It's a totally different mentality from, say, my Aunt M's family (my dad's sister). Aunt M never went to college. She married a farmer and her children were all raised to value the land over education. One of her children actually combined the both--she has a column in the newspaper about landscaping and has a horticulture degree of some sort, plus owns her own successful landscaping business. I remember how different their whole life was from mine when I went out there...one bathroom for the whole family of six. No air conditioning. Roosters crowing, picking fresh produce from the field for lunch or dinner, feeding the pigs, grooming the horses, etc. It was so "neat" for me to visit, but staying would have sent me into culture shock. I feel they pretty much had the same emotions when they came to see US in the "big city" of Tampa. All of my dad's family stayed in Kentucky. Forever. He's the only one who left, and his children took the message and all fled the nest as well. My brother Mark lives in Canada; my sister is in Texas; my brother Ken is in North Carolina.
So, that's the beginning level of isolation I feel.
Secondarily, I don't fit in with my OWN family. Did you catch the part where my mom is a math major and my dad's a retired orthodontist? Yeah. It gets better. Mark is a petroleum engineer. Rose is an electrical engineer. Ken has a degree in chemical engineering, but he went and got his MBA, so he's doing other stuff for Oracle now. What am I?
BA, Duke, English. MA, USC, Medieval and Renaissance Literature.
In high school, my sister was a cheerleader (and valedictorian of her class, mind you). My brothers played football, did wrestling, did track. What did I do?
National Forensics League (speech). Oh, and I read fantasy/science fiction, played dungeons and dragons, wrote stories, and hung out with other geeks.
Both my sister and my brother Ken went to Notre Dame just like dear old dad, too.
I feel like singing Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the other! One of these things just doesn't belong!"
My whole family has always been registered, card carrying republicans. I have never signed up EVER to EITHER political party because that would imply I approved of either the republicans or the democrats, which I don't. I'm a bit liberal for my family's tastes. My parents and siblings are all very Catholic and devout. I'm a bit of a wild woman *coughs*.
My parents, even though they faced financial hardship when my dad had a stroke and could not practice orthodontics anymore, always were financially comfortable enough to not worry about critical bills. As life went on, they had investments come in and slid back to the upper middle class bracket. My brother Mark is the president of an oil company with 16 patents to his name and is obscenely wealthy. Ken worked for IBM and Oracle and is also obscenely wealthy. My sister is more in the "normal" range of comfort financially. She left work to stay home with the kids, but her husband is still an electrical engineer and does well. They don't have to worry about money; they just can't do a lot of traveling or buying nice cars, etc with the huge family they have (remember: Catholic).
Then there's me. Adjunct instructor teaching salary of $23k a year (including Writing Center hours), supporting two children, with an unemployed ex husband.
On just about every level, I am the freak of the family that doesn't fit in. It makes me sad, but...it makes me happy too.
See, despite all of those differences, my family's got my back. Sure, they took a little too long to come around to my need for a divorce (those Catholic values of 'no divorce' creeping in, mostly). But when they DID realize it was the best thing for me and the kids, they swooped in and helped me out. When I was little, Mark would pick on me like a good big brother, but there was hell to pay if a person tried to pick on ME! I remember one time when he grabbed this one kid and banged him against the wall while he coldly explained how the fellow would never touch me again, or die. My hero! And even though nobody in my family is QUITE the geek I was and am, my brother Ken was the one who tossed me Lord of the Rings to read when I was 12...bought me my first comic books (Spiderman and Daredevil)...and took me to see Star Trek in the theatres. My sister Rose, nine years older than me, told off a really bitchy girl from down the street who was picking on me, and hell she took me on DATES with her! I'm not kidding you. When she was in high school, she was so busy with school, cheerleading, ballet, and her boyfriends that she always made it a point to take me with her on occasional dates so that we'd have time together. I went rollerskating with Roy and his cousin who was also 8 at the time (double date! haha!), and to the movies repeatedly with Judd and her.
My mom, who was always brought up to follow, followed for many years...until I hit my teens and we started having intense discussions about the world. My mom gave me a zest for life and taught me how to REALLY LIVE and enjoy the world; in exchange, she says I taught her to question authority and always hunt for the truth over security. I still remember my dad's eyes flying open wide when she suddenly went on a rant about how the Catholic church should allow women priests and priests to get married...haha! I thought my dad was going to pass out cold!
And my dad! My dad gave me honesty. My dad taught me that it was always best to say what you feel, and to not be subtle about it. "Blunt to the point of pain" is the gift he gave me. He was always there to help me, whether or not it was to drive a uhaul halfway across the country or to assist with a bizarre physics problem. After his stroke, he had no choice but to show all emotions he thought men should hide. We share a big heart with a sharp tongue.
And the rest of the family? Education or not, rural life versus city life, we all have more than just our blood in common. When we get together we joke in a dry, sarcastic manner that almost makes one feel as if it's a bunch of Brits disguised as Kentuckians. We'll sit around and make cracks about Uncle G, family life, jobs, America, and the world. And we laugh. And we sip our wine or chug our beer, and the sun sets slowly...the stars come out...the fireworks let off...the kids slowly collapse on the lawn as the hour gets later and later...we pack up, feeling content...
...and look forward to another event years down the road. My family. Different, yet better because of the differences. They got my back and I got theirs. I'm truly blessed.
Oh, before I forget...the kids! That's Alex right behind them, and me asleep on the sofa. I should dig out a better one of Ariana though. She's sticking her hands in her face on the one Amanda has, and on this one she's doing a totally fake grin. Still, here it is!
I always have mixed feelings when the family reunion comes around. I mean, sure, I'm glad to see everybody and we always have a good time, but I always brood before and afterwards too for a variety of reasons.
To start, this is the first family reunion I will be attending as a divorced woman. God that feels odd. Nearly all my other cousins and such my age and older are married with children, or at least engaged, and they will be attending with their significant others. My love is stuck in France for a few more weeks, so that is not an option.
Then there's my branch of the Mueller family versus the other branches issue. I don't know how it happened, but my particular unit doesn't fit in with the other parts of the family very well. My unit is the "intellectual snob" unit. Yes, some of my cousins have college degrees, but education wasn't smacked into them like it was with us. My dad is a retired orthodontist. He was #2 in his high school class, did two years at Notre Dame pre-dentistry and then did so well there that he went off to dental school without a bachelor's degree completed. Then he was #2 in his dental class and #1 in his orthodontist class. My dad was, in his day, one of only three board certified orthodontists in Florida. He was the one that all the others used as a reference when they had clients they couldn't help. My dad is brilliant. He would have never been happy with anything but a brilliant woman by his side. Therefore, he tracked down my mom with expert hunting skills. She was a math major and eventually got her ultrasound certifications in a variety of specialty areas. We were taught that we could ONLY quit school AFTER we had our bachelor's, and the preference was that we'd go on further. We were to find and marry other intelligent people and breed intelligent, educated babies. So sayeth the parents. It's a totally different mentality from, say, my Aunt M's family (my dad's sister). Aunt M never went to college. She married a farmer and her children were all raised to value the land over education. One of her children actually combined the both--she has a column in the newspaper about landscaping and has a horticulture degree of some sort, plus owns her own successful landscaping business. I remember how different their whole life was from mine when I went out there...one bathroom for the whole family of six. No air conditioning. Roosters crowing, picking fresh produce from the field for lunch or dinner, feeding the pigs, grooming the horses, etc. It was so "neat" for me to visit, but staying would have sent me into culture shock. I feel they pretty much had the same emotions when they came to see US in the "big city" of Tampa. All of my dad's family stayed in Kentucky. Forever. He's the only one who left, and his children took the message and all fled the nest as well. My brother Mark lives in Canada; my sister is in Texas; my brother Ken is in North Carolina.
So, that's the beginning level of isolation I feel.
Secondarily, I don't fit in with my OWN family. Did you catch the part where my mom is a math major and my dad's a retired orthodontist? Yeah. It gets better. Mark is a petroleum engineer. Rose is an electrical engineer. Ken has a degree in chemical engineering, but he went and got his MBA, so he's doing other stuff for Oracle now. What am I?
BA, Duke, English. MA, USC, Medieval and Renaissance Literature.
In high school, my sister was a cheerleader (and valedictorian of her class, mind you). My brothers played football, did wrestling, did track. What did I do?
National Forensics League (speech). Oh, and I read fantasy/science fiction, played dungeons and dragons, wrote stories, and hung out with other geeks.
Both my sister and my brother Ken went to Notre Dame just like dear old dad, too.
I feel like singing Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the other! One of these things just doesn't belong!"
My whole family has always been registered, card carrying republicans. I have never signed up EVER to EITHER political party because that would imply I approved of either the republicans or the democrats, which I don't. I'm a bit liberal for my family's tastes. My parents and siblings are all very Catholic and devout. I'm a bit of a wild woman *coughs*.
My parents, even though they faced financial hardship when my dad had a stroke and could not practice orthodontics anymore, always were financially comfortable enough to not worry about critical bills. As life went on, they had investments come in and slid back to the upper middle class bracket. My brother Mark is the president of an oil company with 16 patents to his name and is obscenely wealthy. Ken worked for IBM and Oracle and is also obscenely wealthy. My sister is more in the "normal" range of comfort financially. She left work to stay home with the kids, but her husband is still an electrical engineer and does well. They don't have to worry about money; they just can't do a lot of traveling or buying nice cars, etc with the huge family they have (remember: Catholic).
Then there's me. Adjunct instructor teaching salary of $23k a year (including Writing Center hours), supporting two children, with an unemployed ex husband.
On just about every level, I am the freak of the family that doesn't fit in. It makes me sad, but...it makes me happy too.
See, despite all of those differences, my family's got my back. Sure, they took a little too long to come around to my need for a divorce (those Catholic values of 'no divorce' creeping in, mostly). But when they DID realize it was the best thing for me and the kids, they swooped in and helped me out. When I was little, Mark would pick on me like a good big brother, but there was hell to pay if a person tried to pick on ME! I remember one time when he grabbed this one kid and banged him against the wall while he coldly explained how the fellow would never touch me again, or die. My hero! And even though nobody in my family is QUITE the geek I was and am, my brother Ken was the one who tossed me Lord of the Rings to read when I was 12...bought me my first comic books (Spiderman and Daredevil)...and took me to see Star Trek in the theatres. My sister Rose, nine years older than me, told off a really bitchy girl from down the street who was picking on me, and hell she took me on DATES with her! I'm not kidding you. When she was in high school, she was so busy with school, cheerleading, ballet, and her boyfriends that she always made it a point to take me with her on occasional dates so that we'd have time together. I went rollerskating with Roy and his cousin who was also 8 at the time (double date! haha!), and to the movies repeatedly with Judd and her.
My mom, who was always brought up to follow, followed for many years...until I hit my teens and we started having intense discussions about the world. My mom gave me a zest for life and taught me how to REALLY LIVE and enjoy the world; in exchange, she says I taught her to question authority and always hunt for the truth over security. I still remember my dad's eyes flying open wide when she suddenly went on a rant about how the Catholic church should allow women priests and priests to get married...haha! I thought my dad was going to pass out cold!
And my dad! My dad gave me honesty. My dad taught me that it was always best to say what you feel, and to not be subtle about it. "Blunt to the point of pain" is the gift he gave me. He was always there to help me, whether or not it was to drive a uhaul halfway across the country or to assist with a bizarre physics problem. After his stroke, he had no choice but to show all emotions he thought men should hide. We share a big heart with a sharp tongue.
And the rest of the family? Education or not, rural life versus city life, we all have more than just our blood in common. When we get together we joke in a dry, sarcastic manner that almost makes one feel as if it's a bunch of Brits disguised as Kentuckians. We'll sit around and make cracks about Uncle G, family life, jobs, America, and the world. And we laugh. And we sip our wine or chug our beer, and the sun sets slowly...the stars come out...the fireworks let off...the kids slowly collapse on the lawn as the hour gets later and later...we pack up, feeling content...
...and look forward to another event years down the road. My family. Different, yet better because of the differences. They got my back and I got theirs. I'm truly blessed.
posted by Kira | 6:12 AM
4 Comments:
Too funny. I missed the money boat, too. My sister and her friend were discussing where to vacation...Italy or Greece...and carefully weighing the pros and cons of each. Which is better, a cruise or... I felt pretty out of it. I love her just the same, though.
I get the divorce-stigma vibe from all my Catholic friends. Oh WELL!!! Most people, I think, have an "it happens" mentality.
Have fun at the reunion. Kentucky is beautiful. Maybe not Louisville (?) but the drive in should be cool.
Great post, Kira - really great one.
Totally understand about family and the Sesame Street analogy.
Totally understand how hard it is to have the significant one away when you crave his support.
But great photo - gorgeous kiddies.
Have a good time. x
Great blog, thanks so much for your kind words on the "other" site. I'm not gonna respond though 'cause you most likely don't care to hear about it. I'm just gonna take the complinments and smile :-)
Thanks again
Great post Kira!!
Your kids are beautiful. Your writing impeccable. Your family fantastic.
As the outsider, you learned and absorbed so much, became who you are and surely your family adores that about you.
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